Summary of a Recent
Judicial
Development in
Administrative Law
Plaintiff Did Exhaust Available
Administrative Remedies
Marne A. CoitNational AgLaw Center Graduate Assistant
In Harts v. Johanns, 433 F.Supp.2d 1251, (D. Kansas 2006), the United States District Court for the District of Kansas found that the plaintiff did exhaust his administrative remedies prior to filing his lawsuit in federal court and, therefore, denied defendant's motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust.
Plaintiff Larry Harts entered into a Shared Appreciation Agreement (SAA) with the Farm Service Agency (FSA) on or about May 15, 1989, under the terms of which plaintiff agreed to give FSA fifty percent of the appreciation of the land value that accrued over ten years in exchange for a reduction of his debt. See id. at 1253-54. In December of 1998 the FSA conducted an appraisal of the land in order to determine the amount of shared appreciation that would be recaptured under the SAA and plaintiff objected to this appraisal when he saw it on January 11, 1999. See id. at 1254. Plaintiff called the FSA on two additional occasions to notify them of his objection and the FSA responded with a letter stating the amount to be recaptured and ways to dispute the appraisal. See id. On March 8, 1999, plaintiff was told by an FSA agent that it was too late to appeal the appraisal. See id. Plaintiff subsequently entered into three consecutive one-year agreements with the FSA for the years 1999, 2000 and 2001 to suspend repayment of the appreciation and on October 28, 2003, the FSA sent plaintiff a notice of debt acceleration. See id. Plaintiff appealed the FSA's action to the National Appeals Division (NAD). The Hearing Officer held that plaintiff was not entitled to appeal the 1998 appraisal and this finding was upheld by the Director. See id.
In this case, the defendant claimed that plaintiff had failed to exhaust his available administrative remedies. See id. at 1256. "Under 7 U.S.C. § 6912(e), 'a person shall exhaust all administrative appeal procedures. . . before the person may bring an action in a court of competent jurisdiction against, (1) the Secretary; (2) the Department; or (3) an agency, office, officer, or employee of the Department.'" Id. The District Court found that "Plaintiff did exhaust his administrative remedies prior to filing this lawsuit, because it was addressed at the agency's highest level" and, therefore, denied defendant's motion to dismiss. Id.
The case was decided on June 7, 2006; this summary was posted September 27, 2007.